An Amalgam of Articles

A friend of mine has a brilliant post up about sex and sexuality in teenage media. I also love the title, that being "Be Sexy. Just Don't Have Sex. But Don't Wait Too Long, Or Then You're Weird", partially because it brought up the specter interviews Amy Sherman-Palladino gave after Rory Gilmore lost her virginity at 19; namely that she (Rory) had to lose it sooner rather than later. Which seemed like an odd concept, that there was a timeframe within which one had to be devirginized -at least on television- and that Rory was rapidly reaching that mark by the end of her teenage years and not having sex after that point would make her a freak of nature.

I also like her point about sexualizing teenage stars through their admission of virginity and willingness to sport chastity rings.

Then there's this article about what Katy Perry's horrible song "I Kissed A Girl" has in common with Sarah Palin; and that is that they are both part of a trend of faux-feminism not meant to make feminism (or lesbianism) more acceptable to greater society but to instead take feminism and pervert it, gut out anything of value in it and then use it to shore up heteronormative behaviors and sexual interests.

I read an interesting article about teenage parents (tying in with my friend's post above), but this one highlights how successful teenage parents usually have a greater support system, and 'unsuccessful' teenage parents are ones who are generally of a lower socio-economic class and who were labelled failures even before they started -those teenage parents who would fall into Bill O'Reilly's "something wrong with it" camp given that at some point, society may have to step in and be a pseudo-replacement support system in lieu of the one they originally lacked. This 'successful' former teenage mom lists the things teen parents need in order to make succeeding easier.

And then there's the slightly less than reassuring news from FOX that they are standing behind Joss Whedon and his new show Dollhouse. Which I'm throwing in there because at the moment, I can't wait for January and its premiere, while simultaneously hiding under the covers because I can't shake the feeling it will be cancelled within the first two seconds of airtime.

Why Katy Perry Sucks

Katy Perry has the #1 song in the nation with "I Kissed a Girl", a video that sees her provocatively dressed and that has such gems of lyrics like:

I kissed a girl and I liked it

The taste of her cherry chapstick

I kissed a girl just to try it

I hope my boyfriend don't mind it.

Come again? You hope your boyfriend "don't mind it"? Issues with grammar aside, that is a horrible sentiment! Look, I'm all for sexual exploration. I'm down with the theory that most people on earth aren't entirely one thing or the other, totally straight or totally gay, and that sexuality is more of a gradient or sliding scale than it is a binary code. I myself have a Gay Island of Celebrities, famous people I would think about putting aside my straight-and-narrow ways for. But seriously now. Katy Perry and her ilk of "bi-curious" girls with high school mentalities make me angry, Incredible Hulk style. If you have a boyfriend, you can't explore your attraction to women -just like you can't explore your attraction to other men. That, unless the situation has been discussed and approved of by BOTH parties (and, for my money, actually applies to both parties), is called "cheating". Just because there are two girls involved doesn't make it a lesser offense.

This song, and this behavior, exemplifies the heteronormative ideals of our society. First, there is the assertion that kissing another girl is "not what good girls do"; I would give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she was referring to the cheating, but she already hopes her boyfriend won't mind it and later describes the event as "innocent", so no dice there. Lesbians, therefore, are "bad". And while this girl may think she's being bad by kissing another girl, her plan to return to her boyfriend only furthers the ideology that lesbian encounters are missing something fundamental and vital to a fun and happy and fulfilling sexual encounter: a penis. Same thing goes, by the way, for the girls who think watching their boyfriend suck face with another guy is "hot". Because they don't feel threatened that their boyfriend may suddenly decide that this vagina thing just isn't for him. Songs like this and the behavior it espouses diminish and denigrate the validity of homosexual relationships and feelings. Katy Perry's boyfriend shouldn't worry; she's not going home with a GIRL. Furthering that line of thought is the idea that this encounter is somehow "innocent", and thereby not threatening to the accepted heterosexual relationship. Had her loss of inhibition led to her kissing a boy, the song would probably be a more angst-ridden tune.

And that is the kind of attitude that is absolute crap, that allows men to find two women engaging in sexual acts "hot" as opposed to "threatening" or "disgusting" when two men are engaging in the exact same behavior. Because as long as "bi-curious" women treat their homosexual liaisons as "cute" and "innocent" and "not threatening", as long as these women get hot and bothered and then return to their boyfriends and insist that there is nothing wrong with it, these girls will be doing a disservice to every gay person who seeks to have their relationship considered on par with a straight one.

So, to Katy Perry and girls like her, just stop it. Stop kissing (and doing other things) with girls and then going home with your boyfriend. What you're doing is just greedy, and engages in a horrible double standard. If you want to explore your sexuality, then break up with your boyfriend and actually explore it. Actually treat the relationship you develop with a woman or the encounters you have with a woman as just as important and viable as you would had these occurred with a guy. Otherwise, you're a cheater. And like every other cheater, you're pretty much just an asshole.